Those little nagging irritations

My mom and my grandgirl, Kaity 2004  This picture takes away all irritations :)

*Telemarketers who use auto-dial and can’t seem to be there when I actually answer the phone.  If I have the courtesy to answer the phone, they should have the wherewithal to be on the other end without me having to wait for them to irritate me.

*People who make unconnected leaps in their arguments.  What does prohibition have to do with the legalization of prostitution?  What does the cost of pomegranates have to do with socialized health care?

*Students who ask, “Will this be on the test?”  Don’t they understand that every pearl of wisdom from my lips may be important someday?  What happened to knowledge for knowledge’s sake?

*Narrow thinking.  Stereotypes.  Unyielding boundaries.  Unacceptance of others’ reality and truth.

*Ethnocentricism.  Racism.  Sexism.  Ageism.  Ableism.  Homophobia.
 
*People who talk on their hand-held cell phones while they drive.  Multi-tasking is great, but not when I am on the road with you, please.
 
*People who can eat anything during the holidays and not gain an ounce.  Actually people who can eat anything at anytime and don’t have to directly apply it to their hips (to bypass all the in between).  We call them “lucky,” but they can be damned irritating.
 
*Students who say, “I missed class today; did I miss anything important?”  No, I answer; I wasted an entire hour of the students’ time.   Or, “I missed class today; what did I miss?”  Like I am going to give them an hour’s worth of lecture over the phone. Yeah sure buh huh
 
*Telemarketers who greet me like we are old friends and ask how my day is going.  Cut to the chase so that I can hang up faster and get on with my going day.
 
*People who say “Patience is a virtue.”  Don’t they understand that “Instant gratification is not soon enough” (Carrie Fisher)?
 
*People who procrastinate longer than I procrastinate.
 
*Students who have missed half the term and ask on the last day of class if they can do extra credit in order to pass.  Yes, I tell them; next term when you retake the class.
 
*People who change lanes during rush hour without signaling.  People who ride my ass when there is no traffic.  People who drive like they are still in Boston.
 
*People who dial the wrong number and then get angry at me for not being the person they wanted to call.
 
*People who have a difficult time seeing that other people do not react, see, or live in the same reality as them.  One of my favorite quotations is from Steinbeck’s Cannery Row:  “It is all fine to say, ‘Time will heal everything, this too shall pass.  People will forget’ and things like that when you are not involved, but when you are there is no passage of time, people do not forget and you are in the middle of something that does not change.”

peace~~~